Gallogly Family Has Long History With New Haven's St. Pat's Parade

The largest spectator event each year in Connecticut is a huge celebration.

There is a long list of reasons people make the trek to New Haven, famous for its brick oven pizza, hamburgers, colleges, Yale Bowl, theater and restaurants.

One of the biggest draws is the annual New Haven St. Patrick's Day Parade, the largest annual public spectator event in the state, which this year will take place March 15.

This year's parade is taking on additional meaning as organizers have reached back to the parade's roots by naming Timothy Gallogly as its grand marshal. Gallogly's grandfather, William F. Gallogly Sr. is widely credited with resurrecting the parade six decades ago in 1956. It is now the sixth oldest parade, longevity-wise, in the country.

Let Tim Gallogly tell the story: "My grandfather's best friend was Richard Lee,'' who was mayor New Haven in the mid-1950s. "He told the mayor that he was sick and tired of having to travel to New York or Boston to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade.''

New Haven's parade, which was first held in 1842, had languished, according to Tim Gallogly, "after the boys went off to fight World War I. A lot of them never made it back, and the parade didn't either.''

Bill OBrien

Bill OBrien

Legend has it that Lee told his good friend William Gallogly that he could spend $4,000 — in the 1950s this was quite a bit of money — to resurrect the New Haven St. Patrick's Day parade. "The rest,'' Tim Gallogly said, "is history.''

The New Haven parade budget has grown to about $140,000 now.

The parade is about a mile-and-a-half long and includes more than 3,600 marchers from 130 organizations. Members of Irish American and Irish societies, including the New Haven Gaelic Club, the Knights of St. Patrick, the Irish American Community Center, and the West Haven Irish American Club, which are the sponsoring groups, march. Typically, it draws more than 300,000 spectators, making it the largest "single-day spectator event in the State of Connecticut," according to stpatricksdayparade.org.

The Gallogly connection to the parade has also been a constant thread.

Tim's grandfather, William, passed the reins onto his son William F. Gallogly Jr., and his wife, Audrey – Tim's mom.

Both of Tim's parents worked on many parade committee boards, and his father was named an honorary grand marshal in 1996.

Tim's reign as parade marshal this year took on additional meaning when his mother, at age 86, passed away shortly before Christmas, a few months ago. Earlier in the year, his mother had been given an "Appreciation Award,'' for all the work she did over the years, behind the scenes, working on the parade.

"She was proud that I was named grand marshal for this year's parade,'' said Tim Gallogly. "I just wish she would have been able to see it.''

The job of parade marshal, which is a volunteer position, said Tim Gallogly "keeps me pretty busy.'' The duties include attending dozens of meetings, fundraising — and more. Tim is a busy guy, as he also has a full-time job as facilities director of the Hamden YMCA. Meanwhile, he's also been recovering from hip replacement surgery.

Tim Gallogly said: "It was important to me that I wasn't named grand marshal just because I was a Gallogly. I didn't want to ride my family's coattails. I wanted to earn it on my own merits.''

Bernadette Smyth LaFrance, the 2008 New Haven St. Patrick's Day Parade grand marshal, and whose great uncle was William Gallogly, Sr., said: "The strong sense of Irish pride and the importance of family has been passed down for a couple of generations in the Gallogly family. The influence of the first immigrants of two families, William Gallogly, Sr. and his wife, Marie Smyth from County Leitrim, Ireland, impacts our local Irish community today through the hard working contributions of Tim Gallogly and his cousins.''

"When we became young adults, many of the Gallogly, Smyth, Bohan, and Cannon cousins began our 'Irish apprenticeship'," said LaFrance. "We realized that our extraordinary, Irish influence had filled our hearts from birth, and it was our turn to learn from our parents so we would be ready to some day take the reins and ensure that the love and pride for our Irish heritage would be preserved for generations in New Haven county.''

The Sunday, March 15th parade steps off at 1:30 p.m., at the intersection of Chapel and Sherman streets, moves east on Chapel Street, north on Church Street, slows in front of the reviewing stand in front of City Hall, then continues past City Hall onto Grove Street.